The term summarized the insults directed to Jesus, but an underlying meaning revealed his relationship to God’s people.

According to the Navarre Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, “Nazareth, where the Annunciation took place (Lk 1:26), was a tiny and insignificant Palestinian village. It was located in Galilee, the most northerly part of the country. The term “Nazarene” refers to Jesus’ geographic origin, but his critics used it as a term of abuse when he began his mission (Jn 1:46). Even in the time of St. Paul the Jews tried to humiliate the Christians by calling them Nazarenes (Acts 24:5). Many prophets predicted that the Messiah would suffer poverty and contempt (Is 52:2ff; Jer 11:19;Ps 22), but the words “he shall be called a Nazarene” are not to be found as such in any prophetic text. They are, rather, as St. Jerome points out, a summary of the prophets’ teaching in a short and expressive phrase.

However, St. Jerome himself (cf. Comm. on Isaiah, 11:1) says that the name “Nazarene” fulfills the prophesy of Is 11:1: Christ is the “shoot” (nezer, in Hebrew) of the entire race of Abraham and David.”